Education Week - June 21, 2017 - 9

Teachers' Cues, Subtle or Not,
Shape Students' Experiences
By Evie Blad
Getty

TAKE-AWAY: Teachers were least likely
to see gender as a concern.

Strongly disagree

Somewhat disagree

Somewhat agree

Strongly agree

32

Englishlanguage
proficiency

26
33
9
41

Race or
ethnicity

25
26

Those two are connected, right-a student's
environment and their confidence about
performing in that environment?

7
52

Gender

24
21
3

TAKE-AWAY: Most teachers want help
addressing students' sense of belonging.

20
56%

If students don't feel like they belong in their school environment, they can feel like
impostors, said DENA SIMMONS, the director of education at the Yale Center for Emotional
Intelligence and a former middle school teacher.
That feeling can create fear and anxiety that hijack students'
learning experiences or lead them to believe they are not capable of
success, she said.
Simmons' views are not just informed by her professional and
academic work; they are also shaped by her experiences as a child
of an immigrant mother who transferred from a public school in
the Bronx to a mostly white boarding school in Connecticut.
In a TED Talk, Simmons discusses the time a teacher at her new
school loudly confronted her in front of her peers about the way she
pronounced "asking." The moment, she said, made her feel like she
didn't belong.
With DENA SIMMONS,
director of education,
Simmons says students in all kinds of schools pick up on cues
Yale Center for
like she did. Disproportionate discipline rates for children of color,
Emotional Intelligence
a lack of literature featuring characters who look or live like them,
or a sense that their "identity isn't present" or reflected in their
teachers or peers can create hurdles to belonging.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

I have had some training
and do not want more.

I have had some training
and want more.

20
I have had no training
and want some.

4

Which of the following
best describes your
experience with
professional
development and
training intended
to help you foster
your students' sense
of belonging in your
classroom?

I have had no training
and do not want any.
TAKE-AWAY: Teachers recognize their role in
helping students feel safe and supported.

Which of the
following factors
do you think has
the most influence
on your students'
sense of belonging
in the classroom
community?

22
The environment in the
school as a whole.
My own ability to help students
feel welcome and respected
in the classroom.

57%

15

7

Respectful relationships
with peers in class.

Students' own experiences and
backgrounds outside of class.

Yes, and there's different things that can tell you that
[this environment wasn't created for people like you].
You can look into your books and see nothing like you.
Your teachers very rarely, if you're a person of color,
look like you. Or, if you're a student with a disability,
you rarely see teachers who look like you as well.
Constantly you're getting all these messages where your
experience, or your identity, isn't present.
In some ways, your experience, your identity, is
erased; it's invisible. You start to look around and try
to find pictures of you and you can't, and so you start to
panic. You start to say, "Do I belong here?"
That's why I think it's crucial for educators to, if
they don't represent their students' backgrounds
or can't relate, that they make a concerted effort in
inviting those experiences into the classroom through
expanding the curricular experience of students and
inviting mentors in the classroom that can speak to
their own experiences, and many times those are
experiences that are marginalized. We have a status
quo in this country, and if you don't fit it ... you will feel
like an impostor.

How did you experience this at your boarding
school?
My boarding school did have nurturing aspects to it.
Like I shared, leaving the Bronx and not having to hear
gunshots out my window, and going to a place where
it was quiet when I went to sleep was a very welcome
novelty for me.
There were definitely things that I welcomed about
that experience. However, it did not come without its
trauma.
I think what happens in, I mean a lot of the boarding
schools in the country, and I don't want to downgrade
them, they do really great work. But, in my research on
bullying, and you talk to any of those private schools
and they'll say, "We don't really have a problem."
That, to me, I think is the largest issue. When you
don't identify that you potentially have a problem, then
you don't think you need to address it.
In general, if [educators] think that they are saving
people, then they don't think that they can actually do
harm in their "saving."

I think that happens a lot, not only in privileged
schools, but also in any district or charter school in our
nation.
We send these narratives of saving these black and
brown kids from urban environments that we, in
many ways, through our narrative, disempower the
communities that we say we're trying to save.

How can teachers address these factors and
build belonging so that students don't feel like
impostors?
If you don't fit into the status quo, then you are made
to feel like you do not belong. That's why it's crucial and
important that as we educate our students, as people
in front of the room working with our students, that we
address our own bias.
We need to address and reflect on our positionality.
What does it mean for me to be a white woman from
Arkansas teaching in the Bronx? What does it mean for
me personally as a black woman from the Bronx who's
acquired all of this social capital who is now teaching
in the Bronx? Regardless of who we are, if we're in the
room as the educator, there's a certain level of power
and privilege that we have that we have to reflect upon
and speak on.
We have to be vigilant about it so that we don't
inadvertently abuse our powers, inadvertently suggest
that there is one way to do things because it is our way
of doing things.
I tell people that if we approach the world like it is art,
then we will begin to see the beauty. If we walk into our
classrooms with the mindset that ... there are assets
from which we can learn, we will shift our thinking
away from thinking that we are coming in to "save"
these kids, and I put that in quotes because I hate
that. ... Instead, [teachers should] see our children, the
communities we serve, as art-as people who we can
learn from, people who are beautiful, communities that
are beautiful, as lessons to be learned.
Coverage of learning mindsets and skills is supported
in part by a grant from the Raikes Foundation,
at www.raikesfoundation.org. Education Week retains
sole editorial control over the content of this coverage.
RESEARCH INSIGHTS: Students' sense of belonging deeply
affects school experiences, researchers say. Read summaries
of recent findings. www.edweek.org/go/belonging

EDUCATION WEEK | June 21, 2017 | www.edweek.org | 9
http://www.raikesfoundation.org http://www.edweek.org/go/belonging http://www.edweek.org
Education Week - June 21, 2017

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